Editor's Pick 9 September 2013

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Refugee camp of Azaz, Syrian border.
Refugees from Halep and surrounding areas have lost their houses under the bombings. They left Halep with just the clothes they had at the time. They have no documents, no money, no belongings. The refugees believed the could cross the Turkish border to escape the massacres, but after a limited number of refugees were accepted by the Turkish government who settled in the nearby camp of Kilis, the border was closed. They had to settle in the camp right on the Syrian border, waiting for a move that does not arrive.

Turkey cannot take more refugees and cannot do more than what actually it does. The refugees must stay were they are, with no home in Syria anymore, no passport to leave the country, as if convicted to stay in the camp.
The excess number refugees not accepted into Turkey settled in September 2012 under big hangars once used by Syrian customs police for storing and checking goods before letting them pass the border. For months the refugees had to sleep right on the pavement, under hangars, under trucks or any other shelter available. No heating, no running water, no latrines, no roof above their heads.

Tents arrived just at around the middle of November 2012, donated by the Red Crescent of Qatar. Since that, three hangars were filled with tents, then other tents were placed on open ground. In December 2012, the number of refugees at the Azaz camp reached about 7000.

Downtown Halep, quarters of Bustan al-Pasha and Sakhour, December 2012.
The town is partially controlled by the brigades of the Free Syria Army. Snipers, hidden in isolated buildings, necessitate a fast crossing through the large and open avenues. Some people try to continue their normal life downtown, still living in their houses, even if the majority have left for the refugee camps at the borders of the country.

MIGs and helicopters of the Bashar Al Assad regime are continuously releasing rockets and barrel-bombs over the buildings. A quick look at the sky, some strikes, the blast and gray smoke lifts not too far from where we are. Another building hit, some people wounded and injured will be soon added to the list.

Daily life in Halep is pretty scary. The regime is now releasing big barrels filled with explosives. They release these bombs over the town, anywhere they like. No targets are aimed. They throw them here and there. No one is safe in any shelter. Shelters actually don’t work. Halep is a very ancient town and buildings are very weak. In spite of that, some citizens are still keeping their homes there, still trying to lead a normal life, together with the rebels of the Free Syria Army which fight on two front lines: one against the regular forces of the regime, one other against the Kurdish minority which supports the regime. In the middle, the citizens of Halep, try to survive in a ghost town, partially destroyed, under the daily bombings of such madness.

Recently, weapon stores that sell and repair arms have been sprouting up in Aleppo, Syria. These stores are opening in rebel held areas in Syria and, due to the lack of regulation, are further destabilizing the fragile security situation. The omnipresence of arbitrary militias in civilian areas is creating discomfort among citizens. Citizens are demanding the Free Syrian Army and Sharia authority find a solution and enact laws that govern the sales of weapons in the area.

Shop owners have stated that most of their clients are rebels. They mention that their weapons supply comes from the Free Syrian Army. Members of the Free Syrian Army often barter their weapons for ammunition. Furthermore, some members of the Assad regime sell their weapons to civilians who then sell them back to the shops. In general, most of the arms that are available in the shops are Russian made.

First interview is with Abu Mohammed a weapons sales man 38 years
Second interview is with Abu Ibrahim, a weapon sales man, 36 years

Third interview is with Abdullah Karmo, a civillian, 33 years

Fourth interview is with Moustapha Amro, a civillian, 22 years

-----Transcription-----

00:30 Are they here?
00:31 Yes, they are.
00:32 How much is this one?
00:33 75 Syrian Pounds.
00:39 Most of my clients are Free Syrian Army soldiers. They gain weapons in the battles and exchange them for bullets because of the lack of ammunition.

Interview 1:
00:56 Regarding civilians, when they ask for weapons, I don't sell to them unless they have a permission slip from Al Sharia authority.
Even if the person is an FSA soldier, I ask about him before I sell him anything, or he needs to give me a paper that states which brigade he fights for.

Interview 2:
01:23 Here, we fix weapons as a service.
01:33 Some thugs sell weapons to civilians. so we get the weapons from them.
01:40: We have all types of Russian weapons, Russian bullets, Russian BKC, we have a variety of Russian weapons.

Interviews 3:
02:32 The city of Aleppo is witnessing a spread of weapons in a chaotic and random way. It's even a bit weird and strange. This is a very bad phenomenon, which is also unethical.
02:43 It's extremely messy, the way weapons are being spread.
02:48 There are many shops that sell weapons now and these shops are not legally organized.
02:54 To be able to control this, we must have a mechanism to monitor the process of selling and buying weapons, with both brigades and sellers.
03:06 Al Sharia authority should have a role in controlling this trade, and establish laws to organize the random spread of weapons.

Interview 4:
03:15 This phenomenon is not good at all, but as long as we are in a war situation, we must have these shops.
03:22 We need them because it helps us. If the army attacks us, we can defend ourselves with these weapons.
03:31 I know it' bad, but we have no other choice. What can we do ?

04:02: An explosion with the sound of an airplane flying overhead as interviewee speaks.

06:57: Fighter fires machine gun from building

01:29 - 02:31
Interview with a fighter from the Al-Abbas Katiba

Fighter: So, first of all, they call me Abu Halab, I am a fighter from the al-Abbas Katiba and I am in charge of this zone of the Hatel quarter, against the regime's army.

F: Of course, we were forced to pick up arms. We are civilians, normal people, no one if front us or behind us. We had to start carrying weapons because of this situation, this ferocious campaign. We are facing an organised army, with tanks, rockets fire, an air force, artillery, all sorts of weapons. We had to pick up arms to counter this attack and the army. This is how it is, and this is the situation we are living in.

F: We are currently staying in this place. We eat and drink and sleep here. In terms of battles, we're constantly watching the army. They've got positions close by. In case we see any movement, so if a tanks moves, or soldiers, we engage them.

02:32 - 04:41
Translator: So you're guarding the place in shifts?

F:Yes, there is always someone on guard. 24 hours a day. But this is urban warfare. Sometimes we have to enter houses and it turns to a house-by-house battle.

F: Concerning the liberation of Syria, there are a few obstacles. The biggest problem is ammunition, we do not have enough. All the ammunition I have I carry. I cannot give it to all the others This is the sound of plane flying above us.

T: A helicopter

F: Yes. Speaking of the helicopters, we do not have anything like that and have nothing to fight them with. We need some rockets to shoot down the planes. To stop the air strikes and to frighten the army we are fighting. Our enemies need to know that we are weakert. We have automatic rifles, RPGs, so we can sort of deal with tanks, but for the air force we need missiles.

F: First I will talk about the situation in general and them speak about Deir El-Zor specifically.
The media in Syria always focusses on one certain place, for example Halab, Sham or Homs. But Deir Ezzor is completely marginalised. Sometimes, and very unregularily it comes up in the news and not always correct and complete. In Deir Ezzor, the media cover maybe 10 to 15 percent of what happens in this zone, but they do not transmit a clear or true picture. I only ask one thing from the media, that they come here and transmit the truth, the images of this situation in its correct form. We do not want the picture to be distorted. We want the truthful image, that of destrcution...

04:42 - 05:28
T: The image of this truth, destruction, injustice

F: Well, you can see with your own eyes where we are now: the destruction, there is nothing left. We are grateful for you. This is the first time that I see journalists coming here to film anything.

F: With regards to living in the country and us as fighters, the country needs security forces to maintain order, the army needs to order it. We want to move on from this phase to the phase of adjusting the country. The country needs jobs, like carpenter or painters and so on, all of them need to participate in this question, and in reforming security. Everyone who has an interest and can help. And God willing we will be able to live in this country, step by step.

05:29 - 09:21: B-roll: Members of "al-Abbas"-Katiba try to conquer a building controlled by the Syrian Army: City Destruction, Action shots, battle scenes, gunfire

Syrian rebels on the Salahaddine frontline in Aleppo can be seen carrying the remains of a civilian. According to them, the man was killed in July during Ramadan and the Syrian Army controlling never buried him, letting his body to rot in the streets and be eaten by rats, leaving nothing but a skeleton. The FSA, who then just retook the neighborhood, made cleaning the streets of such corpses a priority.

Officials prepare a wounded Syrian girl who arrived at a hospital after a bomb attack for an X-ray procedure. While walking in the street with her mother, she was wounded by shrapnel and the mother was killed from a bomb which destroyed a building nearby. The girl was carried into the hospital by an FSA soldier, to later be reunited with her deceased mother in Aleppo, Syria, May, 2013.